Japan’s Super Silhouette racing category, held as part of the Fuji Grand Championship Series from 1979-’83 and aligning with FIA Group 5 specifications, was wildly successful, but ultimately so expensive that teams could no longer sustain the series. It was so popular, that even today, the Gra-Chan style of custom car (you’ve seen it on those passed-around e-mails – street cars with absurd trunk wings and massively exaggerated fender flares and airdams) remains a part of Japanese car culture – especially among those who like their machines from the early ’80s.

One of Nissan’s first entries in the series was this 910 Bluebird; the real thing weighed just 1,000 kilograms (about 2,200 pounds) and utilized a turbocharged four that, at 560-plus horsepower, was stronger than even Formula 1 engines of the day. The Coke-sponsored Bluebird won the championship in both 1980 and 1982.

Tomica’s latest model in its 3-inch (1/64-scale) Limited Vintage Neo series replicates the championship-winning 1982-season Bluebird, piloted by H. Yanagida. The removable front end separates it from the other models in the already highly detailed Limited Vintage series, as do the display box and the driver figure. (And the correct Coca-Cola markings don’t come free either, sadly.) You’re not going to get the underhood area wired and plumbed, but everything else you see in the photo might lead you to believe that this was a 1/43, or larger, scale car. The soft tires can peel off the extra-wide rims, which offer correct scale depth to the center sections. Paint and tampos are perfect, the various body pieces (trunk wing, the box flares ahead of the rear wheels) look right, and you can even look inside to see a correctly contoured racing seat and shifter with big honkin’ knob to grab onto! All that’s missing, really, is some post race-track clag.

The only bummer is the price: at 3,100 yen (that’s the discounted price!), and with the conversion rate somewhere around 75 yen to the dollar lately, one of these Bluebirds is an expensive proposition. We got ours from amiami.com, a Japanese collectibles house with an outstanding English-language page and what we have found to be superlative customer service. Get a couple, or choose the red-and-black #11 ’83 DR30 Skyline in the same series (and with the same attention to detail), and save on postage.